Varaldia

(The Bounty of the Stars)

The PCs traveled outside the city of Sarkheen, using the sewers to escape notice. After reaching Arnoa Helmbright’s ranch house they confronted him about the high ink prices. Managing to secure a private meeting with him they agreed that if the PCs could take care of Constable Garston, who had been cracking down on smuggling as of late, that Arnoa would sell the ink at its original price.
The party began surveilling Constable Garston and the Praetor of the Dessunian garrison in the city. They learned that there was a movement within the city that opposed the Empire’s influence and had been vandalizing buildings and causing mischief. The constables nephew was a part of this group and they managed to convince the constable to look the other way in exchange for letting him arrest the subversive group without having his nephew implicated. This also had the effect of making the Dessunians look foolish, as they had been doing their own investigation.
With the pressure off of Arnoa, the PC got the ink (even managing to swindle a few hundred gold out of Terrid in the process) and Terrid was able to make their papers.
The party headed northward with Asynnia and a few of her servants. As they went further north the plain became drier and dustier. Stopping at a wayside shrine of Pelor the PCs encountered a group of thugs who had been desecrating shrines in the name of Sinmir the Dragon King. Enraged at the desecration Foscoe attacked them, forcing the party into a confrontation. After a hard fight the party emerged victorious, even securing three red drake mounts. As they went back to the wagons a troop of 30 or so goblins surprised and surrounded the party, having taken Asynnia hostage…

(The Bounty of the Stars)

The heroes met with Asynnia “Gorgon” Worosi, a beautiful woman who is somewhat familiar with the higher society of Maaj Dessunah despite her ownership of several brothels throughout the empire. Asynnia told them that in order to travel north to the capital of Taru Maaj the heroes would need convincing travel papers. These papers used a semi-magical ink which only one forger in the city could work with. Asynnia asked the PCs to pay back a favor she owed the forger (an eladrin named Terrid) in order to gain his services.
As the PCs were leaving the brothel Rogarath was recognized by a Praetor of the Dessunian army and a fight ensued. The PCs were able to defeat the soldiers and some of themore gold hungry patrons in the brothel, but were forced to flee. With Rogarath now known to be in the city it made it harder to move around unnoticed.
After spending the night in the sewers Aiden, Calcifer, and Xan were able to make their way to Terrid’s house. He informed them that he would be willing to make the forgeries but that his supplier of the special ink, a halfling named Arnoa Helmbright, had tripled his prices in the last month. Terrid wants the party to go to his suppliers ranch and get the ink out of him by whatever means they can short of killing him…

(The Bounty of the Stars)

After spending a week or so resting, researching, and replenishing their gear at the Star Reader’s Pillar the heroes set off for Maaj Dessunah. Lord Sperrin had given them instructions to go by way of Sarkheen, a small city on the northern shore of Lake Rikkir. There they would find “Gorgon” an operative working for Oshurin. They traveled across the Plain of the Fallen for days. As they neared Sarkheen they got separated as an unnatural fog descneded at nightfall. The fog heralded the rise of specters and a horrific vine monster that attacked two of the heroes. The sounds of battle eventually allowed the rest of the party to find their besieged comrades and together they were able to destroy the undead and drive off the vine creature.
After finishing their journey to Sarkheen the PCs booked a room in The Broken Chain, an inn at the cities center. The heroes had to conceal Rogarath’s identity from the city guard in order to go unnoticed.
The PCs found Gorgon in a brothel named Jemm’s Gems and she turned out to be a beautiful woman who took them into the back room of the brothel to talk…

(The Bounty of the Stars)

The PCs made their way deep into the heart of the forest wary of danger on all sides. They eventually found a path and continued along it until they found the remnants of a caravan that had been attacked by some large creatures. Seeing that things had been dragged off the path into the forest, the heroes surmised that there may have been survivors.
Following the drag marks they stumbled (literally in Calcifer’s case) into a den of spiders led by an albino shape-shifting spider known as an aranea. After defeating the aranea and freeing its prisoners, the Pc’s were surprised to discover that on of the captives was Lord Sperrin, King Adumir’s right hand man.
Sperrin was on his way to the Star Reader’s Pillar and then to Fort Mormyth where he had planned to task the PC’s with a mission. Seeing as they were all going to the same place, the PCs escorted him to the Pillar and they, Lord Sperrin, and the Star Reader Jonakar all sat down for a council in which several important points were revealed.
The falling star that was seen crashing to earth is actually the “fruit” or “seed” of another world. it was drawn to this world by the power of the old cultists’s ritual which the PCs interrupted. Because of the interference of the heroes, the seed did not land in the right place. Instead it crashed farther north in the empire of Maaj Dessunah. Lord Sperrin orders the PCs to travel to Taru Maaj, the capital city of the empire, find put where the seed landed, and, if possible, bring it back to Oshurin…

(The Bounty of the Stars)

The party made their way back to Scoars and returned the bodies of the missing people to the city watch. They stayed the night in Scoras and sold some of their loot for a tidy sum and also bought a number of items. During the shopping trip Xan realized that his amulet had gone missing. Surmising that it was stolen by some unknown party, the group helped Xan look for the amulet. They scoured the inn where thay had stayed and even followed up on some leads that took them to some known thieves. Ultimately however they were not able to recover the amulet and they returned to Fort Mormyth.

After requesting to take a leave of absence,the party decided to accept the invitation to the Star Readers Pillar. They set off on their journey which has taken about 5 days so far. As they neared the Pillar they encountered a swarm of spiders and have begun to notice that the woods seem darker and webs have begun appearing in the trees…

(The Bounty of the Stars)

After a few days more at the fortress, reinforcements arrived from a southern garrison and soon builders and carpenters showed up and began repairing the buildings and outer walls. Turil Half-Horn also arrived and ordered the characters to investigate the disappearance of magic users in the town of Scoras, about a half day’s journey to the north.
The PCs traveled to Scoras and through various investigative efforts tracked the missing magic users (two druids and a mage) to a cave along the shores of Lake Rikkir northeast of Scoras. After defeating the cave’s guardians who seemed to be Corandol soldiers who had been reanimated from death by an otherworldly power, the PCs noticed an island out on the lake which wasn’t there before.
Taking a boat out to the island, the PCs managed to land undetected and infiltrate a temple on the island through its sewer system. Once inside the temple they freed the mage and defeated hellhounds and a powerful cultist mage. They also encountered a red haired woman who seemed to be the cultists superior, however she teleported away.
The PCs interrupted a ritual that the cultist was performing, however before he died he proclaimed that the ritual had still succeeded in doing what he had intended and that “the fruit had fallen.” The PCs left the island wondering at the cultist’s last words…

(The Bounty of the Stars)

The party began their journey when they were ordered by their commanding officer, Turil Half-Horn, to secure Fort Mormyth for the kingdom of Oshurin. The fortress was previously a border outpost for Oshurin but was abandoned about 20 years ago. Due to recent tensions with Corandol the outpost is being manned again. Unfortunately Oshurin’s army is not what it once was and they have hired the Blue Phoenix Mercenary Company to supplement their strength.

The characters are an elite squad within the Blue Phoenix who take on missions that are more difficult or complicated than the normal soldier could handle. The PCs are tasked with making sure the keep is clear so that the masons and builders can move in and repair the fortifications.

The PCs made their way to the fortress after running into a Corandol patrol along the way. They secured the fortress, routing a goblin tribe who had taken up residence in the keep’s Great Hall and also taking care of a beetle colony that had infested one of the towers.

After spending the night in the gatehouse, the characters had a visitor early the next morning. This visitor, an old man named Jonakar, claimed to be a member of the Star Readers. He told the characters that his order had seen signs of their arrival and that a prophecy made 20 years ago told that when Fort Mormyth was retaken it would signal a great shift in region’s balance of power.